


Flung Out of Space

by Inyri



Series: Dr Jillian Holtzmann, Time Traveler [1]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Slow Burn, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 11:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8711017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inyri/pseuds/Inyri
Summary: Jillian Holtzmann is a time traveler from 1984 and the world of 2016 is just not ready for her. Neither are the three women whose lives are changed forever by her visit. AU where none of the canon events happen; the Ghostbusters don't exist (not yet, at least), but Abby, Erin, and Patty are roommates in NYC. I plan to explore Toltzmann, Holtzbert, and Yatesbert.





	1. The Blonde on the Tracks

**Author's Note:**

> I'm obsessed with this fandom but this is my first fanfic contribution. I found writing the dialogue especially difficult, so if anyone has comments, please leave them! 
> 
> There will be ghosts and busting in the future of this fic, but it won't be a focus of the story. I'm more interested in exploring the relationships between the characters and the idea of time travel/parallel universes.

Monday afternoons were usually slow at Patty Tolan’s booth at the Seward Street station and this week was no exception. She’d already finished 3 chapters in her new book about the history of the Metropolitan Opera House and her brain was too tired to take in any more information at the moment. So she peered up at her security camera monitor and wished for something interesting to happen.

She got her wish quicker than she expected.

Her favorite artist stepped into view, rattling a can of spray paint in his hand.

“Oh, hell no,” Patty whispered to herself. “Not again.”

She shook her head as she reached for her trusty flashlight, getting up from her chair and closing up her booth behind her.

“Hey,” she called once she’d made her way to the end of the platform and was close enough to be in earshot of the guy who always got her in trouble with his “artwork.” He completely ignored her, not even offering a cursory glance in her direction at the sound of her voice. “Come on, man, why’re you doin’ this?”

When he didn’t answer yet again, she took a step closer to him and crossed her arms as she raised her voice slightly. “You gotta stop that.”

“No can do, Patty,” he answered, still not looking away from his painting. “This wall was calling to me.”

“I didn’t hear no wall and neither did you,” she answered. “Now just stop it before I have to involve the police.”

Now he looked over at her, his eyes a bit wider at her threat.

“Patty, we both know you wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh, wouldn’t I?” Patty asked, taking another step closer to him and raising an eyebrow to show him she meant it. This expression always worked on her roommate, Erin, and she hoped the artist was just as susceptible. “You think I won’t get them down here to drag your vandalizing ass to the station? Now, shoo.”  

The artist opened his mouth to answer, but before he started talking, he just turned and ran for the exit.

“Now that’s more like it,” Patty said. “Patty still got it.”

Patty looked at the half-finished portrait of a sad clown that the artist had left behind and shook her head, turning to stare out at the tracks as she imagined the lecture she was sure to get from her boss once she filed the vandalism report.

She almost missed it. Had she blinked or turned her head, she would have, but she didn’t, so the miracle played out in full view, causing Patty’s jaw to drop in shock.  

A small woman in dirty overalls and yellow-lensed glasses with a tuff of wild blonde hair appeared out of thin air in the middle of the tracks, looking up at the ceiling and then down at the bundle of electronics strapped to her chest.

“What the _hell_?” Patty muttered.

The woman continued to furiously turn dials on the piece of wiry tech on her front and Patty couldn’t help noticing how the woman didn’t seem scared or upset at all. She stared, completely baffled. Then the automated subway voice announced the approaching express train and Patty jolted into action.

“Get your dainty ass off the tracks!” she yelled at the blonde, rushing toward the stairs at the end of the platform that led down onto the tracks.  “You’re gonna get yourself killed!”

The blonde finally looked up at Patty, her blue eyes distinctly unconcerned behind the big, yellow lenses.

“I’m fine,” she said, her smoky voice effortlessly even.

Patty ignored the blonde’s nonchalance, launching off the bottom step and hurtling at top speed toward her. The blonde’s eyes went wide when she realized that the 6-foot Patty wasn’t going to stop, but she didn’t have time to react before Patty hoisted her up and over a shoulder.

“What in sweet Tesla’s name are you doing?” the woman asked, anchoring her hands on Patty’s back so she could keep her head up. The machinery on her front dug painfully into Patty’s shoulder, but she just kept her focus on getting back to the safety of the platform.

“What does it look like? I’m savin’ your ass,” Patty answered as she rushed up the stairs, huffing at the extra weight. She tripped up the very last step, sending them both sprawling onto the platform just as the train rushed by.

The train roared loud in Patty’s ears, sending a rush of air through her braids as it sped by. After it had passed, she stood and dusted off her work pants before hurrying to the stranger’s side.

“You okay?” she asked. The blonde woman had just managed to stand up and she was checking her equipment for damage.

“Yeah, just peachy,” she answered. Patty’s heart was still racing from the incident, but she tried to quiet it by focusing on the strange person in front of her. When the blonde continued to fiddle with her tech instead of looking at Patty, the taller woman grabbed the smaller woman’s arm to get her attention.

“Just what the hell were you doing, anyway?” Patty asked. “Your entrance was some Star Trek shit.”

“Obscure, but okay.”

“What? Everybody knows Star Trek,” Patty said and then shook her head, wondering how many crazies she’d have to deal with today not counting this one. “Just where did you come from, anyway?”

“Depends,” the woman answered. “What year is it?”

“2016,” Patty said without thinking. “Why does that matter?”

“Oh my God, I’ve completely forgotten my manners,” the woman said, the shift jarring to Patty but seeming natural to the blonde. “Name’s Holtzmann and I’m jazzed to be here in the 21st century,” she said, putting out a hand for Patty to shake. Patty just stared at the proffered hand.

“Okay, now I _know_ you’re crazy.”

“Attention deficient and hyperactive, to be precise,” Holtzmann corrected. “But that’s neither here nor there. The more important questions are: who is the beautiful MTA worker that saved my life and does Columbia University still exist?”

Patty shook her head again, feeling completely out of the loop with this strange woman. She couldn’t decide where to begin, so she just answered the easy questions.

“Patty Tolan. Yes, Columbia University still exists and just what the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re right,” Holtzmann said, unbuckling the straps holding the machine, “I’ve gotten completely ahead of myself.” She took a moment to finish taking the machine off her, rolling out the kinks in her shoulders after she’d laid down her equipment on the subway platform. “The short of it is: I’m from 1984. My time traveling device,” she gestured toward her tech, “finally worked. Although, considering I was trying for one day in the future, I did overshoot a little.”

“A _little_?” Patty echoed.

“Fine, a little more than a little,” Holtzmann replied with a shrug. “What can I say? This technology was completely untested.”

“If I didn’t see it for myself, I wouldn’t believe it,” Patty said, more to herself than to Holtzmann. “And now it makes sense what you said about Star Trek. The spin-offs didn’t start until the late eighties.”

“They made spin-offs of _that_ show?” Holtzmann gawked. “The future is weird.”  

“Just you wait,” Patty said. “But nevermind that. Are you gonna stay or are ya headin’ back to the eighties?”

Holtzmann looked down at the time machine at her feet and frowned at it.

“Power source blew,” she answered. “So, that means I’m stuck here until I can fix it.”

“Then you’ll need somewhere to crash, ‘cause there’s no way in hell you’re stayin’ down here all night. Do you know anyone in this time period?”

“Maybe,” Holtzmann answered. “Hope so. It really just depends if she survived all the medium poofs. Also I’m not sure if she’s still in New York even if she did.”

“I don’t want to know,” Patty said. “Hey, how about this: I get off my shift in about an hour. You can come home with me and we’ll look up your friend and see if we can get in touch with her.”

“You’re inviting me back to your place?” Holtzmann asked, giving Patty an exaggerated wink. Patty knew that the woman was just trying to be funny, but the slightest of fluttering sensations played in Patty’s stomach. She hid the reaction with a fast retort.  

“Don’t get any funny ideas.”

Holtzmann just gave her a toothy smile and a salute. “Yessir.” Patty rolled her eyes at the blonde’s antics, but found herself smiling regardless. The unexpected feeling in her stomach intensified ever so slightly.   

“Just stay outta trouble for the next hour. Think you can do that?"

“Whatever you say, Pats.”


	2. The Roommates

“I’m back,” Patty called as she stepped through the front door of her apartment.

“Patty, finally!” a voice shouted from the next room. “Your text was so vague and it’s been killing me since.” Abby barreled into the foyer, pulling at the sweater she wore before looking Patty up and down and asking, “Well, what’s the weird thing that happened to you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Patty assured her. Holtzmann came out from behind Patty, putting up a meek hand of welcome while the other held tightly onto her busted time travel device.  

“Hi,” she said. At that moment, Erin ambled into the room.

“What’s going on?” she asked, looking between her two roommates. Then, she caught sight of Holtzmann and she took a step backward. “Oh, and, uh, hi, who is this?”

Abby shot Erin a questioning look, one eyebrow raised over the frame of her glasses, but Erin missed it completely. So, instead, Abby put on a smile and switched gears.

“Yes, who is this?” she asked, her tone friendly.

“Holtzmann,” the blonde answered before Patty could, her voice scraping low in her range. Erin stared at the blonde unabashedly, her eyes wide.

“ _Doctor_ Holtzmann,” Patty added, trying to ignore her roommate’s weird behavior. “Now I’m outnumbered by three of you.”

“ _Time Traveler_ Dr. Holtzmann,” Holtzmann pointed out, wagging her eyebrows in Erin’s direction. The woman blushed.

“What!?” Abby shouted. “We all know that time travel is impossible.” Erin nodded repeatedly, clutching her hands in front of her and trying to look supportive.

“Nuh-uh,” Patty interjected. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

“You’re right about traveling backward in time,” Holtzmann said, starting to pace the small space like she was giving an academic lecture. “But moving forward in time is another thing entirely, as I discovered today.”

“But, how?” Erin insisted, her voice wavering the slightest bit on the last syllable. Holtzmann turned on Erin at her question, taking a few steps toward her.

“Well, hot stuff, I’ll gladly show you.” Her voice dripped with seduction and Patty rolled her eyes as Erin blushed an even deeper red than she had a few moments before. Holtzmann just gave Erin a wink, moving on without a thought. She started to look around the apartment, wandering into the common room.

“So,” she started, “you guys have any tools around here so I can fix my time machine?”

The others followed her in, watching with three different versions of the same confused look as Holtzmann lifted the worn couch’s cushion to look under it.

“Please don’t tell me that’s where y’all keep your wrenches,” Patty said. The engineer didn’t respond.

“Wait a minute,” Abby put in, “if you said that time travel backward is impossible, then why are you going to fix your machine? By your logic, you can’t get back home anyway.”

“Well, I don’t know for sure,” Holtzmann answered, dropping to her stomach to look under the coffee table. “But I think that I’ll be able to return because I’m from that place in time. I belong there. Now that I’ve broken out of my linear timeline, I can move more freely backward and forward than I would have before.”

“I’m not sure it works that way,” Abby said. “And I think I have a hammer from when I moved in and had to hang up a bunch of stuff.”

“That’s right,” Erin concurred. “I think I left it under the kitchen sink.”

“What are y’all talkin’ about?” Patty said, hands on her hips. “’Course we got a full toolbox. It’s in the hall closet. What kinda household you think this is?”

“Thanks, Patty,” Holtzmann said, dashing out of the room as though she knew where the hall closet was.

“The hall closet isn’t that way,” Erin said, rushing out after the blonde. Abby let out a sigh, turning to Patty with a worried line running across her forehead.

“I’m not sure how solid her theory is,” she thought aloud. “I’m not sure she’ll be able to get back just because she came from the past in the first place.”

Patty opened her mouth to say that the rules of science didn’t ever seem to make much sense when there was a crash from the next room.

“We just might have bigger problems than the space-time continuum at the moment,” Patty commented.

“I think you’re right,” Abby answered and the two women started off after Holtzmann and Erin.

They found the women with the hall closet door open, a collection of random household items scattered at their feet.

“Whoops,” Holtzmann said. Erin brushed a dust bunny off her shoulder.

“The good news is that we found the toolbox,” Erin said. “The bad news is that we also found everything else that I forgot that we had.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Patty muttered.

“Hey, at least our apartment has closets,” Abby said. “They are a very rare commodity around here.”

Holtzmann pulled the toolbox off the shelf, leaving the mess where it was, and hustled back into the common room. Erin stayed to tidy up, but Abby and Patty followed the blonde. They watched as she plunked down on the floor beside her busted time machine and popped open the toolbox, pulling out a screwdriver.

“Just what did you get your PhD in exactly?” Abby asked.

“Engineering,” Holtzmann answered, “with a concentration in experimental particle physics.”

“No way!” Abby exclaimed. “Erin and I have our degrees in particle physics, too. What’s the chance?”

Holtzmann stopped for a moment, looking up at Abby from her place on the floor, and said in the most serious tone she’d used yet, “Fate, my friend. Fate.”

Patty and Abby just stared at her, not sure what to make of the comment or the woman who had uttered it. Erin walked in on the awkward moment, looking from one woman to the next before asking, “Did I miss something?”

“Holtz’s an engineer who specializes in experimental particle physics,” Patty answered.

“How do you feel about the paranormal?” Abby asked suddenly, her attention laser-focused on Holtzmann.

“I made a PKE meter for my high school science fair,” she answered, “but the government confiscated it.”

“You built your own?” Abby shouted, her eyes wide and her voice creeping up in pitch.

“Child’s play compared to what I built in college. I eventually made a pretty consistent proton stream before I had to transfer schools.”

“That’s incredible,” Erin breathed. “We had no idea anyone had even come close.”

“That’s because I never published anything on it,” Holtzmann said with a shrug, continuing to unscrew a panel from the outside of her time travel device. “I got caught up in changing schools and I’d never had an entity to test it on, so I abandoned it for other projects.”

“Why did you transfer?” Abby asked and Erin hit her arm.

“Abby, you can’t just ask personal questions like that.”

“It’s fine,” Holtzmann said. “I got kicked out after I accidentally blew up the lab.”

“Now why does that not surprise me?” Patty commented at the same time that Erin exclaimed, “What?!” and eyed Holtzmann’s time machine as though she expected it to explode at any moment. Abby just chuckled.

“I really wish I could have seen your successful proton stream,” Abby said.

“Well, maybe you will,” the engineer replied, pulling the housing off her device and sticking her hand into its wiry guts. “If I’m stuck here long enough, I just might be inspired to make one again.”

“Yeah, weren’t you going to look up your friend?” Patty interjected before Abby and Erin could jump on Holtzmann’s shaky promise and talk about science for the next three hours. “You know, the one at Columbia.”

“Columbia?” Erin echoed, perking up like a dog at dinnertime. “I’ve always wanted to teach at Columbia. You know someone there?”

“Maybe,” Holtzmann said, finally taking a break from working on her machine. “She used to work there back in my time. And she’s more of a mentor than a friend. Can I borrow your phonebook and give her a call?”

The three women looked at each other at the mention of the phonebook and broke out into laughter.

“What?” Holtzmann asked, standing from her seat on the floor. “Did they ban the phonebook in this century or something?”

“Nothing like that,” Erin assured her.

“It’s just nobody has cracked one in over a decade,” Patty supplied. “We have the internet now.”

“The military lets normal people use the internet?” Holtzmann asked, a suspiciously huge grin on her face.

“Oh, you have _no_ idea,” Patty said. “Too many hours of viral videos, here we come.”

“Ooo, you have to show her Cookie Monster Sings Chocolate Rain,” Abby put in. “That’s my favorite.”

“But _first_ ,” Erin pushed in, “we have to get a hold of your mentor. I’ll go get my laptop.”

After twenty minutes of Holtzmann gushing over Erin’s crappy laptop, they googled ‘Dr Rebecca Gorin’ and quickly discovered that she had resigned from Columbia and now was the President of a private university on the upper west side.

“Interesting development,” Holtzmann commented. Erin pouted, bummed that she no longer had an in at Columbia.

“Woah, Holtz, this lady is a total fox!” Abby commented, pointing to Dr. Gorin’s headshot on the screen. “She has so many chili peppers on RateMyProfessor.”

Patty and Erin huddled around Abby to see and Holtzmann blew a raspberry.

“I think we should call and see if she’s still in her office this late,” Erin said. “She might have left for the day. We wouldn’t want to trek all the way to the upper west side for nothing.”

“Good idea,” Abby said, pulling up the university website as Erin whipped out her phone.

Holtzmann stared at Erin’s iPhone 5c in awe and Patty had to offer up her own Samsung so the engineer would stop trying to take Erin’s phone while she spoke with Dr. Gorin’s assistant.

“Alright,” Erin said, hanging up her phone, “ _President Doctor_ Gorin is out until Monday. Her assistant was weirdly adamant about using her full title.”

“Well, looks like you’re stuck with us for the weekend,” Abby said with a smile. “You okay with the couch?”

“It would be an honor,” Holtzmann replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, concerns, and thoughts always appreciated! Thank you for the support thus far. :D
> 
> P.S. I forgot to mention this in my last chapter: Shout-out to Shane_for_Wax for the idea of ADHD Holtzmann. I love their series (you should check it out!) and I'm going to continue with a low-level ADHD Holtzmann for this fic. It will not be a major theme in any way, but she is neuro atypical in my universe if you're wondering.


	3. The Ghost

Erin had always been an early riser. She couldn't be sure if it was due to her perfectionist nature, her anxiety, or just the product of her natural-born personality. No matter the cause, she always got up first in the apartment and had quickly dubbed herself the maker of the coffee for them all. 

This morning was almost immediately different than all the others. When she passed through the common room to get to the kitchen, she found Holtzmann lying on the floor beside the couch and the blankets Erin had precisely laid out for her the night before were in a heap on the floor. The pillow was nowhere to be seen and the blonde engineer was cuddling her half-dismantled time machine. 

Erin stopped in the middle of the room, staring down at the woman and unsure what to do. Surely that machine was at least slightly radioactive? And she would have a huge crick in her neck after a pillow-less night on the floor...

"Holtzmann?" Erin ventured, taking a tentative step toward the sleeping engineer. "Holtz?"

Erin's voice didn't make any difference. Holtzmann just kept on sleeping, her face pressed against the mess of wires protruding from the damaged time travel device. 

"Holtz," Erin tried again, this time nudging the blonde's hand with the toe of her slipper. "Wake up."

Now Holtzmann stirred, pulling the machine closer and murmuring, "Cats...suppose'ta balloon."

Erin felt her face flush, her thoughts scattering for a moment before it occurred to her that the engineer was snuggling with a radioactive machine and the situation had to be remedied. 

So the brunette knelt down and gingerly pulled the hunk of metal out of the half-asleep blonde's arms. She let out a sigh of relief, placing the machine a safe distance away, but in her moment of distraction, Holtzmann grabbed her arm to replace it. 

Erin froze at first, but then she recouped and pulled her arm away. Or at least she tried to. The skinny blonde had a strangely strong grip and Erin's five-year absence from the gym reared its head. 

"Just what is going on in here?"

Erin turned at the sound of Patty's voice as Holtzmann jolted awake, sitting up and exposing the red lines on her face left from the wires. 

"I was  _trying_ to save Holtzmann here from radioactive exposure," Erin replied, her voice sounding tenuous even to her.

"Exposure?" Holtzmann asked, rubbing at her eyes as she reached for her glasses that were hidden under the coffee table.

"Holtzy, what are you doing on the floor? We gave you a perfectly good couch."

Holtzmann shrugged. "Old habits die hard."

"What's all the ruckus about?" came Abby's voice from the hallway. She appeared a moment later in the common room door, her plaid lounge pants and oversized band t-shirt crumpled from sleep.

"I was trying to sleep," Holtzmann said, her hands up to show her innocence. "I guess Erin just wanted to join me." 

"On the contrary," Erin said, taking a righteous step backward. "I was trying to keep you from getting a stiff neck or worse. You're the one who decided that my arm would make a good pillow. Perhaps if you'd used the one I gave you--"

"Sounds about right," Abby interjected, cutting off Erin's rambling. "I saw we just move on from this and make some breakfast."

"Here, here," Patty chimed in. "Patty needs her coffee."

Abby and Patty headed toward the kitchen but Erin lingered, moving to pick up the blankets that Holtzmann had dumped onto the floor.

"You are quite talented at making a mess," she said. Holtzmann didn't answer. Instead, she went to retrieve the pillow that had somehow ended up behind the couch. "Just try not to cozy up to radioactive material. I don't know how much you knew back in the eighties about the adverse effects of exposure, but it's not good."

"Thanks," Holtzmann said, her tone sincere and her gaze locked with Erin's. The physicist's breath stopped at the unexpected and intense moment and a blush began to creep back onto her cheeks.

A second later, Holtzmann broke the moment and bounded away into the kitchen yelling, "Coffee!" and Erin was left standing in the common room with bedsheets in her hand and too many thoughts in her head. 

\- - -

After breakfast, Erin and Patty fought to get Holtzmann's clothes from her. She'd been headed into the bathroom with yesterday's clothes in one hand and Abby's MIT t-shirt hanging and just barely covering her boxers.

"I'm going to the laundromat," Erin said, "and you were on the tracks in a NYC subway. Do you know how many gross things are down there?"

"Yeah, man, it nasty," Patty added. "I do not want to know. Give Erin the clothes before she tells us all the gory details."

"I like gory details," Holtzmann insisted.

"Holtzy," Patty said, hands on her hips and pinning the small blonde with an intimidating glare. "Don't make me fight your skinny ass for them, cause you know I will." 

Holtzmann held out for a moment longer, strong under the dual onslaught of Erin and Patty's glares. But she eventually realized it was a lost cause and reluctantly dropped her shirt, socks, and overalls into Erin's waiting laundry bag. 

"Fiiiine," she groaned.

"Great," Erin said with a crisp smile. "Patty, you have anything?"

"Nah, I'm good." 

"Okay, then, it's shower time for me!" Holtzmann announced. "Erin, I don't suppose you'd like to help me out with this, too?"

Erin blushed and Patty shook her head.

"Just get in there," Patty said, pushing Holtzmann toward the bathroom door. "Erin's got more important things to do." 

Holtzmann shot Erin a wink and then disappeared into the bathroom. 

"That girl, I swear," Patty said, shaking her head.

"I looked her up last night," Erin confessed. "To, you know, make sure she's not a serial killer or an escaped patient or anything."

"And?"

"She's clean. Apparently she's just a harmless genius."

"'Mad scientist' might be closer," Patty commented. "Cute, but mad."

Erin took in a breath, clutching the laundry bag and replaying Holtzmann's offer as she stared at the closed bathroom door. The shower had started a moment before and now the sound of Holtzmann's vibrato-heavy voice joined it. 

"Is that Divo?" Abby asked, appearing beside them, and Erin jumped.

"Gosh, Abby, don't sneak up like that!"

"When it's so fun to see you jump?" Abby asked, smiling at Erin. Her eyes were bright behind the lenses of her glasses.

"I'll never win," Erin muttered. "And now there are two of you." 

Holtzmann's crooning cut through their banter and Erin smiled, realizing that it didn't feel out of place. 

\- - -

Erin came home from the laundromat to find the kitchen table covered with wires, screws, and bits of assorted machinery. Holtzmann's time machine sat amidst it all, its metal guts splayed out like it had been dissected.

Holtzmann and Abby sat at the table, chattering excitedly, while Patty sat nearby reading a heavy hardcover. 

"What's going on in here?" Erin asked, dropping the bag of clean and folded laundry on the only remaining empty chair.

"The short version or the long version?" Holtzmann asked, squinting up at Erin. She had her yellow-lensed glasses on again and Erin couldn't help noticing how alien it made the woman look. 

"Short?" Erin answered.

"Damn," Holtzmann responded as Patty put in, "Good choice." 

"Holtzmann's machine is more badly damaged than she first thought," Abby explained. "Regardless, it's really rather incredible. She managed to build a tiny nuclear reactor to power it and--"

"Aha!" Erin cut in. "I told you it was radioactive."

"The operative word being 'was,'" Holtzmann said.

"She's right," Abby added. "Somehow, it's completely inert."

"But that should take..." Erin paused while she did the calculations in her head. She settled on: "years!" 

"I know," Abby said, her eyes reflecting the worry in her tone.

"My hypothesis is that the time travel itself caused it," Holtzmann said. 

"But what about you?" Erin asked. "Do you look or feel any different than you did when you left your time period?"

"Not at all."

All four women fell into silence as they considered the conundrum. Patty glanced over at Holtzmann, analyzing the woman's facial expression and body language for any hint of upset, but she found none. The frantic buzzing of Patty's phone on the table shattered the strange energy in the room. She picked it up from where it was half-buried by wire and read the texts that kept flooding in. 

"What is it?" Abby asked as Holtzmann kept poking at her machine.

"It's Kevin, the guy who has my post on the weekends. He's freakin' out about something, but I can't quite tell what he's goin' on about."

Patty began furiously texting back and the others kept quiet. The only sound in the room besides their breathing was the hiss of the radiator and the swipe of metal-on-metal as Holtzmann stripped wires.

"Woah, no way," Patty said suddenly, holding out her phone and staring at the screen. 

"What is it?" Abby asked, rushing to Patty's side.

"Is that what I think it is?" Patty asked, looking over at Abby with wide eyes.

"Erin, you better take a look at this," Abby said, waving over her roommate. Erin moved, taking a long look at the picture on Patty's phone. 

"Is that a--" Erin started and Abby finished, "--an unanchored Class 4 entity with distinct corporeal form!"

"Are you guys sayin' a ghost? 'Cause I think that's a ghost."

"That is most definitely a ghost!" Erin squealed.

"Wait," Patty interjected. "He sent a video." 

Holtzmann jumped out of her chair and joined the others around Patty's phone. 

The video started, the camera severely unsteady and the encompassing yelling making everything incomprehensible. Finally, the image centered on a hazy blue man floating on the subway platform, an old-style electric chair headpiece covering his hair. 

"That is totally a ghost," a male voice on the video said, his Australian accent heavy. "Patty, there's a _ghost_ at work!" 

The video ended abruptly and the four women stood there for a moment just staring at the phone. 

"Sweet Einstein, that was a ghost," Holtzmann cooed, daintily taking off her glasses. 

"I second that," Abby said. Then she turned to Erin and said, "We have to get over there before it leaves." 

Before Patty or Holtzmann knew what was happening, the other two started talking very fast, Erin embellishing her words with hand gestures and Abby punctuating hers with exaggerated facial expressions.

"We'll never get there in time," Erin started.

"Maybe if we hurry."

"You know it'll take at least 30 minutes -- it's the weekend."

"You're right. The trains suck on the weekend. Damn."

"We could take a cab."

"It  _is_ an emergency," Abby agreed.

Holtzmann leaned over to Patty, her body tilted at an angle that threatened to topple her, and asked, "Are they always like this?"

"Uh-huh, just about."

Abby and Erin came to some sort of agreement, nodding at each other and then turning to the others. 

"Question," Abby started, directing her words to Holtzmann, "how quickly can you build another stable proton stream?"

"Without my lab?" Holtzmann started, staring out into space as she made the list. "And without my notes...or my tools...or my reliable supply of radioactive material..."

Abby and Erin watched her, holding their breath as she calculated. 

"Two days," the engineer concluded. "But you're all going to have to pitch in; I cannot do it on my own. And we have to wait until I can speak with Dr. Gorin because she'll know where to find the isotopes we need."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Abby said, a huge grin on her face. Erin didn't look as sure.

"What do you mean, exactly, 'pitch in'?"

"Well, I always start in the same place," Holtzmann replied. Then with a finger in the air, she announced, "To the dumpster!" 


	4. The One That Got Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering: I fully intend on continuing and finishing this story. I'm just a little slow updating because I'm working on a few original pieces at the moment. But I've just finished two big projects, so updates should come a bit more frequently. :)

Patty woke in the middle of the night to the sound of clanging metal.

She slipped out of bed, shaking her head and muttering, “If that’s Holtzy at this hour, I swear…” She padded into the kitchen to find that she’d guessed correctly.

“Girl, what are you doin’ up?” Patty asked. Holtzmann didn’t move from her crouching position on the chair, leaning precariously over a hunk of metal. Patty glanced over at the microwave to see the time and said, “It’s four in the morning. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m almost done with the hollow laser for the reverse tractor beam,” she replied, turning her head ever so slightly to take in the sight of Patty.

Obviously the blonde had meant to merely acknowledge Patty’s presence and then go back to her work, because she did a double take, turning her head the second time to look fully at the other woman.

“Those are some rad pajamas,” Holtzmann said and Patty couldn’t decide if the flirtatious subtext was real or just a product of wishful thinking.

“Well, these ‘rad’ pajamas should be in my bed right now,” Patty shot back. “If Abby and Erin weren’t the type to sleep through WWIII, the zombie apocalypse, _and_ the riots that are sure to happen if they ever reboot LOST, they’d be up, too. You’re gonna wake the whole buildin’ with your racket. Don’t you sleep?”

“Sometimes,” Holtzmann answered, turning sheepishly back to her invention. “It’s hard to keep track when there are proton streams to be made.”   

“And I understand that,” Patty said, taking a seat at the table. “But that little body of yours needs some sleep sometime. Can’t the proton stream wait until the morning?”

“I want to get it up and running as soon as possible,” Holtzmann said with a smile.

“You know you don’t have to impress Abby and Erin,” Patty said. “They’re already more than impressed.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Holtzmann asked. “This is _me_ we’re talking about.” Patty just shook her head.

“So you’re gonna stop all this noise and go back to bed?”

“Not a chance.”

“Holtzy…“

“I’ll finish up soon,” Holtzmann interjected. “I just want it to be ready for tomorrow so that when we see Dr. Gorin, the only thing we’ll need are the isotopes.”

“Ah, I see,” Patty said, leaning closer with her elbows on the table, “it’s really this Dr. Gorin you want to impress.”

Holtzmann shrugged and refused to make eye contact with Patty, focusing on her prototype proton gun instead. Patty couldn’t be sure, but she thought the engineer’s movements were a bit less suave than usual.

“Are you nervous?” Patty asked. “You haven’t seen the woman in over 30 years.”

Holtzmann just shrugged again and Patty wondered how much she should push this subject.

“You know, I could go with you tomorrow,” Patty said quietly. “To see Dr. Gorin, I mean. Abby and Erin are teaching classes, but I have the morning free. ‘Sides, you’d probably end up in the Bronx or New Jersey or somethin’ if you went on your own.”

“There is a high probability that that will happen,” Holtzmann said, looking up from her machine, “and I’ll never pass up the company of a woman as beautiful as you. Helps with my street cred.”

Patty had felt the beginning of a blush before Holtzmann added her “street cred” comment. She berated herself for acting like a teenager, a bit relieved that the blonde’s antics had saved her from a full-blown reaction.

“Street cred,” she echoed, shaking her head. “You don’t even know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Still, glad you’re coming with.”

Patty let out a sigh to hide the fact that she was a bit flattered by Holtzmann’s attention.

“So, you goin’ to bed or what?”

“Nope.”

Patty threw her hands up and stood from the table.

“Then, I give up. I did what I could and now I wash my hands of it. I’m goin’ back to bed.” 

“Okie dokie, Pattycakes.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Okay, _Patricia_.” Patty sighed, giving up.

“Just go to bed before dawn, okay?”

Holtzmann gave her a cheeky smile and Patty was not convinced.

“Girl, you crazy,” Patty commented. “Goodnight. See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight,” Holtzmann replied and Patty couldn’t stop the smile that crept onto her face as she headed back to bed.

\- - -

Holtzmann fidgeted in the stiff-backed chair in President Doctor Gorin’s office, pulling at the thread on the seat’s edge.

 “Oh my god,” Patty deadpanned. “You seriously need to find your chill.”

“This _is_ me being chill.”

Patty sighed and commented, “I suppose I can believe that.”

At that moment, the door swung open and Dr. Gorin herself stepped in. Holtzmann stood at her entrance, staring unabashedly at how thirty years had changed her mentor. Dr. Gorin ignored the scrutiny, moving to stand formally behind her desk.

“It’s good to see you alive and well, Jillian.”

“I could say the same to you,” Holtzmann said with a wry smile.

Patty found herself holding her breath, waiting for the women to greet each other in some physical way, but when nothing happened, she let out the breath. Then, realizing that Holtzmann probably wasn’t going to introduce her, she smiled at Dr. Gorin and said, “I’m Patty Tolan, by the way.”

Dr. Gorin gave a small nod of acknowledgement as she took a seat and Holtzmann slumped back into her chair as she slapped her forehead with her open palm.

“Sorry, Pats, I got caught up. Patty is a recent friend of mine. She’s my guardian angel. Saved my life, actually.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Dr. Gorin said. “But I’m glad to see that you survived your trip. You don’t look a day over 32.”

“Pretty good, right?” Holtzmann asked, pulling on the skin of her cheek. “Still soft as a baby’s bottom.”

“So, your time travel device worked.”

“Ridiculously well, yes.”

“Apparently _too_ well,” Dr. Gorin added.

“I always was an overachiever.”

“I remember.”

“You haven’t done so bad yourself,” Holtzmann commented, pointing to the office around them. “These are some pretty sweet digs you got here.”

“Jillian, you know how I hate it when you speak like that.”

“We did come here for a reason,” Patty interjected. She knew she had to grind this crazy train to a halt before it got completely out of her control.

“What can I help you with?” Dr. Gorin asked.

“I need some radioactive isotopes,” Holtzmann answered, “to get back to where I belong. But all my usual suppliers are nowhere to be found.”

“You used a nuclear reactor for the time machine and it came out the other side inert,” Dr. Gorin stated.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what happened,” Patty piped up, sincerely surprised. “How’d ya know?”

Dr. Gorin didn’t even answer. Patty couldn’t help but notice how Holtzmann was smiling at her mentor like a giddy fangirl.

“I have a person,” Dr. Gorin said. “I’ll give you the information. You should be able to have everything you need by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Great,” Holtzmann said, grinning wider than Patty had ever seen.

“You’re sure you’re feeling alright?” Dr. Gorin asked, looking genuinely concerned. “You traveled through time.”

“I’m peachy as ever,” Holtzmann assured her.

“And have you worked out how to bypass the temporal pushback?” Dr. Gorin continued.

“I will.”

“But you haven’t yet.”

“No,” Holtzmann sulked, holding out the vowel in the word. “But I will.”

Dr. Gorin stood suddenly, punctuating their conversation.

“Well, please reach out if you need anything else,” she said. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

Patty and Holtzmann stood, too. Patty put out her hand for Dr. Gorin to shake, but the woman just looked at it.

“Dr. Gorin doesn’t shake,” Holtzmann explained. “Don’t take it personally.”

“Well, thank you anyway, Dr. Gorin,” Patty said. “We really appreciate it.”

“We do,” Holtzmann added unnecessarily, eyes bright.

“Well, be off now,” Dr. Gorin said. “My assistant will provide you with a print out of the information you need.”

Dr. Gorin gave one last nod and then sat down at her desk again, immediately rapt in whatever paperwork she had on her desk. Holtzmann and Patty ambled out of the office, Dr. Gorin’s assistant closing the door before handing them a sheet of computer paper and shooing them back into the hall.

Holtzmann stuffed the paper into her overalls pocket as Patty called them a Lyft.

“Dr. Gorin is great,” Holtzmann gushed.

“She’s somethin’ else,” Patty agreed. “So, she was your mentor?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything else?” Patty couldn’t stop from asking.

“Why, you jealous?” Holtzmann wiggled her eyebrows at Patty. The taller woman just huffed in denial.

“Girl, I ain’t the jealous type. Besides, what do I have to be jealous about?”

“I dunno,” Holtzmann replied. “You tell me.”

“You’re crazy,” Patty answered.

They stood there in silence for a moment, the sounds of New York pushing in around them. Patty replayed Holtzmann’s comment in her head a few times before dismissing it. She wasn’t the jealous type and she didn’t have anything to be jealous of in the first place. The wacky engineer was headed back to the past where she belonged in just a few days. Patty didn’t see any reason to dwell on things any further.


	5. The Ghost Stalkers

“You’re sure it works?” Erin asked, trying _not_ to look at the floor and the walls and the ceiling of the subway station as they walked along the track. The four of them had returned to the Seward Street station where Patty worked and Kevin had seen the ghost, Holtzmann’s proton stream generator in tow. It was a wheeled, boxy thing with dials and knobs and wiring that Erin couldn’t begin to figure out.

“Of course it works,” Holtzmann said, grunting with the effort of pushing the unwieldy machinery down the track. “I tested it last night in the alley while you were all asleep.”

“And you didn’t wake us?” Abby asked, clearly hurt. Holtzmann shrugged.

“Thought this would be more exciting. Nothing like a field test to get the ol’ heart a-pumpin’.”

“Now, I don’t like this,” Patty put in. “I don’t like this one bit. Shouldn’t y’all be testin’ this stuff for days or somethin’ before you take it out into the real world. Scientific method an’ all that.”

“No time for that,” Holtzmann said. “There are ghosts to hunt.”

“We’re not hunting them exactly,” Erin said. “This is more like…stalking.”

“Ghost stalking?” Abby repeated. “Doesn’t sound as badass as ghost _hunting_.”

“Or what about ghost catching?” Patty said. “Isn’t that a bit more accurate?”

“Not exactly,” Holtzmann said, stopping her slow journey down the tunnel. “We won’t actually be capturing the ghost today. I don’t have my ghost trap ready yet.”

“We’re out here without a ghost trap?” Abby asked, her pitch going higher with each word. “What are we going to do, try to sweet talk it into coming back with us?”

“I only had time to get the proton stream right,” Holtzmann said with a shrug. “What’s the point in a trap if we can’t even catch it in the first place?”

Abby was about to pipe up again when Patty interrupted.

“Uh, guys…I think we found our ghost.”

Sure enough, the ghost from Kevin’s video floated toward them. Its body pulsed blue as its eyes glowed red.

“Oh, wow,” Erin muttered.

“It’s beautiful,” Abby cooed.

“Uh, hate to break up the love fest,” Patty interrupted, “but don’t y’all think we should be startin’ up the proton stream about now?”

“Right, Patty,” Holtzmann said, furiously turning dials and flipping switches. “Okay, Erin, get ready.”

“Why me?” Erin asked, looking around nervously. Holtzmann approached the physicist with the large proton gun, shoving the machine into her hands.

“Because you have the longest arms,” Holtzmann explained, patting her patronizingly. Erin let out a breath, wondering if her arms were really the deciding factor or if Holtzmann was just messing with her again. Abby pulled out her camera, flipping open the screen and pointing the lens at the ghost.

“I can’t believe this!” she squealed.

“Okay, when I tell you, point the proton stream right at the ghost,” Holtzmann said to Erin, her voice vibrating with excitement. “But, first, some grounding so you don’t die immediately.”

Holtzmann clamped a heavy, metal collar around Erin’s neck, lingering a moment longer than necessary at Erin’s side. Erin felt her entire body change at Holtzmann’s proximity, senses flaring into high alert. The scientist in her wondered at this, searching for a concrete reason for the reaction. In the moment, she couldn’t come up with one besides the fact that Holtzmann was hot and the situation was charged with danger.

Holtzmann scurried back to her machine, announcing, “I’m firing her up!” Erin clutched the experimental proton gun like a lifeline, waiting for the inevitable kickback. Abby glanced away from the ghost for the briefest moment, watching as the proton gun roared to life.

A crackling stream of blue and white erupted from the proton gun, lacing itself around the ghost. The ghost began to panic, clawing at them as the proton stream tightened around it.

“It’s working!” Abby shouted, thrusting her free fist up in the air.

“But now what?” Erin asked. She struggled to keep the proton stream fired right at the ghost, her arms already aching from the effort.  

“Try to lure it back to the platform,” Abby suggested.

“Nah-uh,” Patty interjected, “not with all those people there.”

“But what other choice do we have?” Abby shot back.

“Uh, guys,” Holtzmann interrupted, “I think we have bigger problems.”

The three woman looked at Holtzmann and then to where she was pointing. A long sliver of light hovered in mid-air beside the ghost they were wrangling, slowly growing wider and longer.

“What’s that?” Erin asked, a mixture of fear and curiosity making her voice a bit shriller than usual.

“I have no idea,” Holtzmann answered.

“It doesn’t look good,” Abby concluded.

“Shut down the machine!” Erin ordered.

“But then we’ll lose our ghost,” Abby replied.

The shard of light changed shape and another blue ghost emerged from the chasm. The light blinked out behind the newcomer, disappearing completely but leaving the ghost in the subway tunnel.

“We’re gonna lose a lot more than that if we don’t do something,” Patty said. “I vote we retreat.”

“I second that,” Erin put in.

“That thing is super ionized,” Abby agreed.

“Okay, shutting ‘er down,” Holtzmann narrated, flipping a large switch on her control board. “Erin, just hold tight.”

Erin clutched the proton gun until her knuckles turned white, counting the seconds in her head and praying for Holtzmann to hurry up. The ghosts were getting closer and the one captured in her proton stream grew angrier by the minute.

The proton gun shut down with a hiss. Erin let out a sigh of relief, but before she could relax, the ghost she’d kept captive pushed a wave of energy at her. It knocked her off her feet, tangling her in wires and dropping the heavy proton gun right onto her chest.

“Erin!” Abby shouted, shutting down her camera and racing to her friend’s side. Patty was there almost as quickly, lifting the proton gun off Erin’s body.

“We’ve got to get outta here,” Patty said, helping Erin to her feet.

Holtzmann rushed over to them, her fingers fumbling at Erin’s neck as she tried to unclasp the grounding collar. Between the ghosts hovering nearby, the adrenaline rushing through her, and the sensation of Holtzmann’s fingers against her skin, she felt like her heart was going to beat right out from behind her sternum. She swallowed, trying to push everything down before it overwhelmed her.

The collar popped off and Erin let out a rushed breath of relief.

“Come on, come on, come on!” Abby chanted, half-dragging Erin as she headed for the subway platform. Erin looked away from the ghosts coming toward them just long enough to catch a glimpse of Patty and Holtzmann pushing the machinery down the track at top speed.

“We’re not gonna make it,” Erin said as she half-ran half-tripped, her attention focused on the ghosts that drew closer and closer.

“We’ll make it,” Holtzmann shouted back.

“Just a little farther,” Abby put in, her grip on Erin’s arm tightening and keeping her upright.

“I think we need a better plan,” Erin shouted. The ghosts moved closer, almost on top of them, and the tunnel echoed with the clanging of metal. 

“Hey, that’s the train!” Patty announced, explaining why it was suddenly so loud. “It’s goin’ express, so it ain’t stoppin’!”

“Get on the platform!” Holtzmann ordered, abandoning her precious machinery in the middle of the track and instead racing toward Erin and Abby. Patty joined her without another thought, hoisting Erin’s skinny body up onto the platform as Abby and Holtzmann took the stairs.

The train raced by at full speed, spattering the sticky, green insides of the ghosts across the subway wall. Specks of it caught Abby, Patty, and Holtzmann, but Erin took the brunt of it, covered from head to toe in ghost guts.

The four women just sat there for a moment, stunned, but then they all looked over at Erin and lost it. They laughed with relief and excitement, adrenaline spiking everything with a jolt of newness.

“We saw a ghost!” Abby shouted.

“We saw two ghosts,” Patty said.

“We saw ghosts!” Abby continued. “It’s all real! I knew it!”

“That was really awesome,” Holtzmann said, reaching over to Erin to dab at the slime coating her body.

“Oh my God, Erin,” Abby started, looking at Erin again, “you can’t see anything.”

“Thank you very much for noticing,” Erin said, wiping the gunk out of her eyes. Holtzmann took some more of the green substance off of Erin and played with it between her fingers.

“Is this ectoplasm?” Holtzmann asked, touching the substance to her tongue.

“I think so,” Abby answered. “We’ll have to take some back to the lab and check, but I’m pretty damn sure we’ve got ectoplasm here.”

 “We don’t even need a sample kit,” Holtzmann said. “We’ve got Erin.”  

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Erin said. “You wouldn’t be so flippant if you were covered in it.” She tried to lift her shirt away from her skin and groaned when more of the ectoplasm slid underneath. “This stuff gets everywhere. I can’t wait to go home and take a very long shower.”

“Yeah, home sounds good,” Patty said. “I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

\- - -

Erin came out of the bathroom in sweats and a t-shirt, her damp hair wrapped up in a towel. The other three were huddled in the living room, frantically going over what they’d all witnessed in the subway tunnel.

Abby noticed her first. The shorter physicist kept her gaze on Erin for a moment just too long. Holtzmann saw this and stopped her blabbering, looking over at Erin instead. Erin shrunk back at the sudden attention.

“Erin, I’m glad you’re here,” Abby said, waving her over enthusiastically. “I want you to tell Holtzmann that what we saw was a semi-anchored, not an un-anchored, entity since it moved so slowly.”

Erin took a seat beside Abby on the couch, towel-drying her hair as she thought.

“I guess you’re right,” she said to Abby. “I feel like it would have tackled me if it could. Instead, it just pushed me with some kind of psycho-kinetic energy.”

“But what about that opening of light we saw?” Holtzmann put in, leaning forward in the armchair. “That could have interfered with the entity’s freedom of movement, rather than its anchored state.”

“Yeah, what the hell was that light?” Patty asked. “It spit out a ghost!”  

“I can only guess that it was a small tear in the barrier, allowing the ghost to slip through from their realm into ours,” Abby said, her face grim.

“That would explain why we’ve had so many ghosts in that particular spot,” Erin said.

“And not to mention Holtzy,” Patty added.

Erin looked over at Holtzmann, trying to read the woman’s expression. Holtzmann had grown particularly quiet at this juncture and now she had her lower lip between her teeth, worrying at it.

“It can’t be a coincidence,” Abby said, voicing what Erin had been thinking but didn’t want to admit.

“Well, it obvious to me we can’t go back there ‘til we have a ghost trap or somethin’ to keep those dudes from gettin’ us.”

“Patty’s right,” Erin said. “So, first things first: let’s get that trap working.” Erin turned to Holtzmann, looking right at her to be sure that she was really listening when she added, “Let me know if I can help you with the math side of things.”

“Thanks,” Holtzmann replied. Her generally deflated state surprised Erin more than anything.

“And me, too, of course,” Abby said.

“And I’ll provide the snacks,” Patty added. “My math is good, but it ain’t _that_ good.”

“Sounds like a solid plan to me,” Erin concluded. “Let me dry my hair and then we can get started.”

Holtzmann nodded and stood, heading for the kitchen. Her tech and tools still took over the entire surface of the kitchen table. Abby and Patty remained in the living room, talking about the ghost, and Erin took the opportunity to wander into the kitchen.

When Erin got there, Holtzmann was already standing at the table, tapping a screwdriver on a random piece of metal as she looked at her half-assembled time machine. Erin tried to think of some smooth way to start this conversation, but she couldn’t seem to get the words out.

“So, um, are you okay? You seemed kind of…upset in there.”

“Just peachy,” Holtzmann answered, her voice flat.

“Are you worried about getting home?”

“Nah,” she said, not looking up at Erin. “More worried about that chasm in the barrier.”

“Ah.” Erin finally realized that it was more guilt than worry that was eating at the engineer. “You think you caused it.”

“I’m pretty sure I did.”

Holtzmann kept her back to Erin, mindlessly hitting the metal with her screwdriver.

Erin took a step closer to the blonde, lifting her hand to place it consolingly on Holtzmann’s shoulder, but she stopped herself before she finished the action.

“But you didn’t know that would happen,” Erin said, letting her hand drop to her side. “And I’m sure we can find a way to patch it up. Or maybe it’ll close on its own.”

“I think it’s getting bigger,” Holtzmann said, her words quiet. “Space-time likes to rip open. I just did it a huge favor.”

The change in the engineer continued to shock Erin. She couldn’t understand this side of Holtzmann. She hadn’t anticipated it and, now that it was happening, she couldn’t seem to make sense of it.

“We’re scientists,” Erin said plainly. “We’ll find a way. It’s what we do best.”

Holtzmann looked over her shoulder just enough for Erin to see her profile.

“Since when are you so optimistic?” Holtzmann asked with the smallest smile.

“Since you became such a Debbie Downer.”

“Me?” Holtzmann said, fully turning to Erin now and pointing the screwdriver at her own chest. “Never.”

Erin noticed how close they were standing and felt like she was breathing too loud or too quickly. Holtzmann held her ground, an infinitesimal smirk pulling at the corner of her lips and unearthing her one dimple. Erin stared at Holtzmann’s mouth, now completely forgetting how to breathe at all.

“Umm,” Erin started, “I didn’t mean…”

She couldn’t get any more words to form. She had no idea where that sentence had been going; she lost her train of thought midway and had no hope of recovering it. The only things occupying her brain were Holtzmann’s closeness and the strange electricity in the air between them.

Holtzmann started to lean toward Erin and Erin’s entire body stopped. Just as Erin thought Holtzmann’s lips would touch hers, Holtzmann breezed past Erin and walked into the living room.

“Abby!” Holtzmann shouted as she stepped into the other room. “What do you think about using temporal push to seal a barrier tear?”

Erin didn’t hear Abby’s answer because she could only replay those last few seconds with Holtzmann over and over again in her head, searching for answers to her many questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are everything! :D


	6. The Medium Poof

**Chapter 6 – The Medium Poof**

Patty ambled into the kitchen the next morning to find Holtzmann passed out with her head on the kitchen table and her mouth open, a tiny puddle of drool forming a bit too close to the newly-built ghost trap. Patty reached over and moved the tech to a safer distance, shaking her head. 

“I can’t never make my coffee in peace with this girl around,” she muttered to herself. 

She headed over to the coffee maker, starting it up, as Erin stumbled into the room.

“Good morning, Patty,” she said. Then, she looked over at Holtzmann’s still-sleeping form and Patty watched as Erin’s eyes widened in surprise.

“That girl can sleep anywhere,” Patty commented.

“It appears so,” Erin replied, her voice quiet so not to wake the engineer. “It looks like she finished the ghost trap last night.”

“Coffee?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Yeah, she’s fast,” Patty added to Erin’s earlier comment. “Stayed up all night, I’m sure, but she got it done.”

“She’s pretty amazing,” Erin said, her tone soft. Patty turned away from the gurgling coffee maker to look at Erin and the physicist blushed under her scrutiny.

“What?” Erin asked. “She’s amazing at engineering.”

“Girl, don’t go fallin’ for a time traveler. You just _askin’_ for some Nicholas Sparks level shit.”

“I’m not… _falling_ for her,” Erin said.

“Uh-huh.” Patty crossed her arms.

Patty knew she shouldn’t dig into this, that she shouldn’t push it, but something about the whole situation bothered her more than she liked to admit. Her interests had never intersected Erin’s before, at least not in the dating sense, and she was hard-pressed to admit that it was happening now. Still…

“Then why you always watchin’ her with those googly eyes of yours?” Patty asked. “I know that look, Erin.”

“I’m not falling for her,” Erin repeated, her brow creased with frustration. Patty just sighed, trying to release the tension she felt pulling at her shoulders.

“Listen,” Patty said softly, “this shit’s been weird since that girl showed up. I kinda just want everything to go back to how it was. I like my life as drama-free and ghost-free as possible.”

“I’m not sure it can,” Erin said. “We saw _ghosts_ , Patty. We have a steady proton stream that we know can contain them, at least for a few minutes. This is huge. We can never go back from here.”

Patty sighed again. She knew that the physicist was right, no matter what Patty wanted to be true. 

“Well, let’s wake up sleeping beauty. No use in talkin’ about her within earshot.”

Erin looked at Patty as though to ask _should I or should you?_ and Patty took the initiative, reaching over and tapping Holtzmann on the shoulder.

“Huh, what calibration?” Holtzmann asked as she jerked awake. “I didn’t do it.”

“Good morning,” Patty said with a smile.

“Good morning, Pats,” Holtzmann replied, reaching for her glasses and putting them on. Then she looked up at Erin with a goofy smile and said, “Morning, hot stuff.”

“Well, it doesn’t take much to get her going,” Patty commented. The coffee machine beeped and Patty reached for the mugs in the cabinet. “Coffee?”   

“Yes, please,” Holtzmann answered, running a hand through her messy curls. “You’re truly an angel among women.”

“Easy now,” Patty said.

Erin waited as Patty poured the coffee, handing a mug to Holtzmann as she sat down at the table with her own. Patty watched as Erin sat quietly sipping her coffee, trying to judge the woman’s mood. Holtzmann seemed to be watching Erin, too, and Patty found this interesting.

“So,” Patty started, breaking the silence that had cropped up between them, “what’s on the agenda for today? More ghost hunting?”

“Yes,” Erin answered at the same time that Holtzmann said, “Yes and no.”

“What do you mean, yes and no?” Erin asked, her voice rising sharply as though she’d been betrayed.

“Yes, because we’re going back to the subway station so we’ll probably run into a few ghosts,” Holtzmann said. “And no, because I won’t be there to hunt ghosts. I’m going to close up the tear in the barrier before it gets any bigger.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Erin demanded.

“By going back through it,” Holtzmann said. Patty’s heart dropped a bit at how evenly Holtzmann broke the news. Patty imagined she use the same flat tone to comment on an average piece of hotel art or some book she’d read while stranded in an airport. There was no way in hell the engineer was talking about _breaking the whole damn universe and traveling back in time_ with that blasé delivery.

“Excuse me?” Erin interjected. “You’re doing what now?”

“Going back to 1984 and sealing up the tear in the barrier,” Holtzmann repeated. And just like that, Patty felt her heart crash all over again.

“How do you know it’ll work?” Erin asked. “That it’s even _safe_?”

“Abby and I worked it all out last night,” Holtzmann said. “It’ll work.”

“But how can you be sure?” Erin pressed. Patty couldn’t help but notice how Erin’s knuckles turned white as she gripped her coffee mug.

“I appreciate your concern,” Holtzmann said, “but it’s really not a big deal.”

Now Erin stood from the table, anger and worry radiating off her stronger than Patty had ever seen it before.

“Not a big deal?” she repeated. “Now listen here, _Doctor Holtzmann_ , your life isn’t something you can just toss around, as if it means nothing. Your actions could have real consequences. Didn’t you learn that lesson already, coming into this time period the first time?”

Holtzmann visibly cringed at Erin’s accusation, staring down at her coffee.

“Woah, Erin,” Patty said, taking a step toward the physicist and placing a calming hand on her shoulder, “there’s no need for a low blow like that. Holtzy’s doin’ everything she can; she’s doin’ what she thinks is best.”

“What’s going on in here?”

Abby entered the kitchen, still bleary-eyed with sleep, and looked from one woman to the next.

“Are you _yelling_ at this hour?” she asked Erin.

“I’m not yelling,” Erin said, shaking off Patty’s touch and crossing her arms. “I’m merely stating my case in a passionate manner.”

Holtzmann continued to look directly into her coffee and Abby noticed. Her mouth fell open in realization and she pointed at the blonde.

“Erin, were you yelling at Holtzmann?”

“That’s right,” Erin said, turning on Abby now. “ _You_ knew what she was planning and not only did you go along with it, but you helped her figure it out! How could you encourage her to do something so reckless? And then keep it from me?”

“Erin, we have to close up the tear and she has to get back to her original time. Of course I helped her find a solution!” Abby threw up her hands, already fighting to keep her voice calm. “And we didn’t keep anything from you. You were in your own world last night. You disappeared to bed before we could even tell you what we were working on.”

“You could have told me,” Erin insisted.  

“I’m not a mind-reader, Erin,” Abby said in that mothering tone that Patty knew got on Erin’s nerves. “How was I supposed to know you wanted to join our late night math club?”

“You should have known,” Erin said. Patty shook her head at Erin’s petulant tone. She knew this was where things would start to escalate into an even worse fight between the two, so she threw the breaks on fast.

“Listen,” she started, “I know we’ve got a lot of feelings in the room right now, but let’s take a break. Eat something, take a shower, take a walk, whatever – just don’t do it together. We’ll regroup in an hour or so and talk like adults. Yes?”

Erin and Abby looked at Patty and then at one another.

“Fine,” Erin said, obviously still angry.

“Fine,” Abby echoed.

Erin grabbed her coffee and disappeared into her room as Abby went to the front door to get her keys. The door slammed behind her when she left.

“You’re good at that,” Holtzmann said quietly once she was alone in the kitchen with Patty once more.

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” Patty answered, sitting down at the table. “You do not want to see where that was goin’.” She paused, letting the silence settle. Then, she asked, “You okay?”

Holtzmann hesitated, running her finger along the rim of her mug, and then gave a slow nod.

“Yeah. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I just didn’t expect Erin to react like that.”

“It’s only because she worries,” Patty said. She didn’t dare mention what she suspected was the real reason for Erin’s blowup.

“I guess,” Holtzmann replied. “Still, I feel bad.”

Holtzmann let out a long breath, letting her head fall to the tabletop with a soft thud.

“Come on, baby, there’s no need for that.” Patty reached out, gently patting the engineer on the shoulder. “It’ll all work out okay.”  

“I’m not so sure, Pats,” Holtzmann mumbled into the table. She lifted up her head and Patty hid behind her coffee mug when she couldn’t hold back a smile at the red splotch on Holtzmann’s forehead. Holtzmann took that moment to chug her coffee before continuing, “I mean, I trust the math of it all. And I know my machine will work again. I’m just not sure it’ll seal up the tear completely. And there’s the whole deal of traveling _back_ in time for the first time ever. Like, I know I can go forward, but backwards? I’m not so sure it’ll work. Abby was right the first time when she said that it can’t be done, so why should I think that I can make it happen? There are just too many variables.”

Patty let Holtzmann ramble until she talked herself out.

“You want to know what I think?” Patty asked when Holtzmann had finished. Holtzmann nodded eagerly. “I think if this thing is meant to happen, if it’s meant to work, then it will. And if it doesn’t, we’ll find another way. Between the three of you geniuses, I’m not too worried about this thing getting solved. And besides, what if this is just a predestination paradox?”

Holtzmann’s eyes went wide behind her glasses.

“You know about predestination paradoxes?”

Patty shrugged and laughed.

“I told you: I’ve watched a lot of Star Trek.”

Holtzmann sipped her coffee with a new purpose, her eyes squinted half-closed as she thought. Then, she put down her mug and looked at Patty with a huge grin on her face.

“Pattycakes, you’re a genius.”  

Holtzmann jumped up out of her chair and leaned toward Patty, leaving a kiss on her cheek. Patty barely had time to register the feeling of Holtzmann’s lips before the woman was crushing tools and machines to her chest and racing to the door.

“Just what is your crazy ass up to now?” she called after the engineer.

“I’ll be right back,” Holtzmann promised. “I just have to make a medium poof out in the alley behind the building.”

Patty stood, chasing after Holtzmann and saying, “We can’t be havin’ poofs of any size outside the buildin’. You’ll get us evicted!”  

The sound of Holtzmann’s manic laughter echoing down the hallway was her only answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments/questions/concerns!


	7. The Slingshot Effect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the end of the main fic, but this is not the end of the story! All will be explained at the end of this chapter.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here today,” Holtzmann said to the three women sitting on the couch. Erin twisted her hands in her lap, still angry from earlier but also humming with curiosity.

“Just get on with it, Holtzy,” Patty said.

 “Hold your horses, Patricia,” Holtzmann said.

“Don’t call me that.”

“For cripes’ sake, Holtzmann,” Abby piped in.

“Fine, fine,” Holtzmann said. She flipped over Erin’s huge whiteboard, which she had pulled into the living room for this exact moment, to reveal her black-marker scribblings.

“Ta-da!” she announced. “I call it, ‘The Slingshot Effect.’ It’s lovingly ripped off, but it works.”

“You’re gonna have to explain, ‘cause I can’t make anything outta that,” Patty said.

“Gladly,” Holtzmann said. “So, Pattycakes and I were talking about Star Trek and it gave me an idea. If this works, I can close the tear in the barrier _and_ stay here in the 21 st century without disrupting the timeline!”

“Amazing,” Abby said. “You figured out how to compensate for the temporal pushback?”

“It sounds too good to be true,” Erin said, her tone critical. She _wanted_ to believe that it could work, and that she could keep the engineer with them, but her skeptical side told her it was false hope.

“Let me explain,” Holtzmann said, still smiling despite the voiced doubts. “So, there’s this episode in Star Trek where they time travel by slingshotting the Enterprise around the sun.” She punctuated her story with wide arm gestures. “Now, of course that doesn’t actually work, but it made me think: what if instead of trying to close the tear by traveling back in time in a straight line, I did a slingshot maneuver around the place where I started from in 1984 and came back to the future? That way, I can use the temporal push to my advantage instead of fighting against it. It’ll be like stitching up a wound. I’ll be the needle and the temporal pushback will be the thread, tying up the tear in the barrier. I have all the diagrams and equations worked out.” She pointed to the mess of shapes and numbers on the whiteboard.

“You’ve got a lotta mixed metaphors in there,” Patty started, “but it sounds like a good idea. Of course I have no idea if the science of it will actually work.”

“The equations are solid,” Abby said, hopping up from the couch and standing by the whiteboard. “I mean, Erin, take a look at her energy transferral estimate here.”

Erin got up slowly, wanting so badly to believe the numbers on the whiteboard. It _looked_ like it would work. The approach was sheer genius—that was obvious. The equations made Erin’s heart beat just a tiny bit faster.

“Can your machine handle the extra energy you’ll need for the slingshot?” Erin asked, turning to Holtzmann with a serious expression.

“I made some modifications,” she answered. “And, yes, I think so.”

“That is the trickiest part of this,” Abby agreed, unable to stop herself from grinning. “If your reactor blows before you get all the way around your departure point, it could fling you anywhere in time.”

“Or nowhere,” Erin added grimly. The idea of Holtzmann blinking out of existence made her more upset than she cared to admit. To hide her concern, she put a bit more bite into her tone. “We’ll need to triple-check your trajectory equations, because if we’re even a degree off, who knows where you’ll go.”

Abby turned to Erin, hands on her hips and eyebrows furrowed behind the frame of her glasses, and said, “Ease up, Erin. Of course we’ll triple-check everything. Don’t you think Holtzmann has enough on her plate without you giving her a hard time? What’s gotten into you lately?”

“Nothing is into me, or, I mean, nothing has gotten into me,” Erin stuttered. “I’m just worried about untested equipment and untested theories being used when there are lives on the line. That’s all.”

Erin finished her rant and stood there, her head held high, and hoped the others couldn’t tell that her heart was beating too fast and she cared just a little too much about a certain blonde engineer. Abby just looked at her for a moment, as if seeing something for the first time, and then she sighed and shook off the moment. She looked very tired all of a sudden.

“Ladies,” Patty said, “as much as I appreciate all the science talk, don’t you think we should get goin’ on Holtzy’s plan? The longer we wait, the more ghosts we’ll have on our hands. And I don’t know about y’all, but those dudes is nasty and I don’t want any more of them than’s necessary.”

“Patty’s right,” Holtzmann said. “Let’s look over everything and get our butts down to the subway.”

“Fine,” Erin said, crossing her arms. “Show me your trajectory calculations and we’ll go from there.”

“Nice,” Holtzmann said, smiling at the physicist.

After two grueling hours of math and theoretical physics, Erin sipped her coffee and tried not to think about how they were rushing headfirst into ghost territory. Sure, they had a working proton stream, a ghost trap, and a plan to close up the tear in the barrier, but Erin still felt nerves wrangling every last atom in her body.

Abby’s hand settled on her leg as they sat on the subway train, stopping the bouncing that had been going on without her noticing.

“It’ll be okay,” Abby said. “We’ve got a solid plan and amazing tech. It’ll be fine.”

Erin just nodded, not trusting the sounds that would come out of her mouth at that given moment.

“It’s all pretty exciting, isn’t it?” Abby said, her eyes lit up in that particular way that always made Erin smile. She loved to see her best friend excited about scientific discoveries.

“It really is,” Erin answered. Abby smiled at her and she made a small smile in reply. The shared moment helped to drain a bit of the anxious energy from her muscles.

“See?” Abby said. “It’ll be great. Let’s go kick some paranormal ass!”

“Here, here!” Holtzmann said, suddenly crashing in on their conversation from across the subway car. “Are we almost there?”

“Almost,” Patty answered, rolling her eyes at the antsy woman beside her. “Just one more stop.”

“Sweet.”

They waited in silence for the Seward Street station, a mix of anxious and excited energy vibrating between the four of them. When they finally made it to their stop, Abby and Erin carried the ghost trap and Holtzmann’s time machine while Patty and Holtzmann carried the various parts of the new-and-improved mobile proton gun.

“Well, let’s suit up,” Holtzmann said when they’d reached the end of the platform. Abby took the parts of the proton gun from Patty and Holtzmann and Patty helped her strap on the pack and safety equipment. Meanwhile, Erin hesitantly gave Holtzmann her time machine. It was a bit bigger than the first rendition and it purred from its glowing core.

“Are you sure about this?” Erin asked as Holtzmann pulled the straps tight.

“Of course I’m sure,” Holtzmann said, looking up at Erin through her yellow lenses. “We have to seal that rift one way or another. This seems like the best option.”

Erin stood there for a moment, working up the courage to say what she’d wanted to say all day. If she was completely honest, it was something she’d wanted to say ever since she caught the woman sleeping on the ground in their living room that first morning.

“Holtz, I wanted to ask you something,” Erin started hesitantly.

“Yeah, what’s up, sweetcheeks?”

Erin couldn’t help but blush at the nickname. Now words felt even harder than before.

“If you don’t come back--” Erin started.

“Oh, I’m coming back,” Holtzmann interrupted. “You’ll see. Two seconds and I’ll right back here with you and the gals, ready to catch some more ghosts.”

“Yes, but if something goes wrong—“

“We’ve been through this,” Holtzmann said. “Nothing will go wrong. Worst comes to worst, I’ll go back to 1984 and you’ll have to put up with a 64-year-old version of me tomorrow.”

“You’ll come find us?” Erin asked, genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, of course I’ll come find you,” Holtzmann said, smiling. It took Erin’s breath away. “No matter what happens, I’ll come find you guys. Who else am I going to nerd out with? Besides, Patty and I have _lots_ of Star Trek to catch up on.”

“Holtzy, you ready?” Patty said, calling from a few feet away where she was checking the shoulder straps on Abby’s proton gun.

“Yep!” Holtzmann said, throwing the woman a thumbs up. Then, she turned back to Erin and asked, “Was there something else?”

Erin held Holtzmann’s gaze and opened her mouth, but nothing happened. She couldn’t bring herself to ask about the almost-kiss or confess that she was far too worried about whether the engineer would come through all this in one piece and in the right timeline.

“Erin!” Abby called. “Let’s do this.”

“Right, coming,” Erin said. She picked up the ghost trap from where Abby had left it and followed the others down the short stairs onto the tracks.

“This is the spot,” Patty announced. “I don’t see any ghosts yet, but I’m sure this is where it all went down.”

“Well, this is it,” Holtzmann said, pushing a few buttons on her time machine. She turned a dial on its front and the purring from the machine intensified. “If I don’t see you all in a few minutes, I want you to know that it’s been fun.”

“You have all the right numbers programmed in?” Erin asked.

“You checked them yourself, hot stuff,” Holtzmann said. “Just another second and the tear should show itself.”

They all watched as Holtzmann’s machine worked and, sure enough, the sliver of light appeared before them in the subway tunnel.

“Well,” Holtzmann said, “here goes nothing.”

She gave them a two-fingered salute and pressed a button on her time machine.

Then she disappeared into thin air.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know how mean it is to leave you on a cliffhanger, so I'll be uploading the first chapter of the next part(s) of this. 
> 
> Here's how it works: Holtzmann's time traveling causes two separate timelines to form. In each timeline, her time traveling ends differently and, therefore, different couples will be endgame. I'll try to upload a chapter for each timeline at the same time, so no one feels left out. Feel free to read both timelines or just one! They'll stand alone from this point on.
> 
> Timeline A: Erin and Holtzmann POV, Holtzbert endgame  
> Timeline B: Abby and Holtzmann POV, Toltzmann and Yatesbert endgame 
> 
> Enjoy! Please comment/kudos/all that jazz. I appreciate it so much! 
> 
> P.S. The episode that Holtzmann references is TOS "Tomorrow is Yesterday"


End file.
